George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 1 (of 3)

The reading of dramas and romances naturally gives rise to discussion of their main theme. In treating of love and marriage, Miss Evans's feeling was so fine as to satisfy a young girl in her teens, with her impossible ideals. The conception of the union of two persons by so close a tie as marriage, without a previous union of minds as well as hearts, was to her dreadful. "How terrible it must be," she once said to me, "to find one's self tied to a being whose limitations you could see, and must know were such as to prevent your ever being understood!" She thought that though in England marriages were not professedly "arrangés," they were so too often practically: young people being brought together, and receiving intimations that mutual interest was desired and expected, were apt to drift into connections on grounds not strong enough for the wear and tear of life; and this, too, among the middle as well as in the higher classes. After speaking of these and other facts, of how things were and would be, in spite of likelihood to the contrary, she would end by saying, playfully, "Now, remember I tell you this, and I am sixty!"

She thought the stringency of laws rendering the marriage-tie (at that date) irrevocable, practically worked injuriously; the effect being "that many wives took far less pains to please their husbands in behavior and appearance, because they knew their own position to be invulnerable." And at a later time she spoke of marriages on the Continent, where separations did not necessarily involve discredit, as being very frequently far happier.

One claim, as she regarded it, from equals to each other was this, the right to hear from the aggrieved, "You have ill-treated me; do you not see your conduct is not fair, looked at from my side?" Such frankness would, she said, bring about good understanding better than reticent endurance. Her own filial piety was sufficiently manifest; but of the converse obligation, that of the claim of child upon parent, she was wont to speak thus strongly. "There may be," she would say, "conduct on the part of a parent which should exonerate his child from further obligation to him; but there cannot be action conceivable which should absolve the parent from obligation to serve his child, seeing that for that child's existence he is himself responsible." I did not at the time see the connection between this view and the change of a fundamental nature marked by Miss Evans's earlier contention for our "claim on God." The bearing of the above on orthodox religion I did not see. Some time ago, however, I came across this reflection, made by a clergyman of the Broad Church school – that since the claims of children had, in the plea for schools, been based on the responsibility of parents towards them, a higher principle had been maintained on the platform than was preached from the pulpit, as the basis of the popular theology.

In my previous communication in the "Life" I have already made mention of Miss Evans's sympathy with me in my own religious difficulties; and my obligations to her were deepened by her seconding my resolve to acknowledge how much of the traditional belief had fallen away from me and left a simpler faith. In this I found her best help when, as time passed on, my brother saw he could not conscientiously continue in the calling he had chosen. As, however, his heresies were not considered fatal, and he was esteemed by the professors and students of his college, there was for some time hesitation. In this predicament I wrote to him, a little favoring compromise. My mother also wrote. I took the letters to Miss Evans before posting them. She read mine first, with no remark, and then began my mother's, reading until she came upon these words – "In the meantime, let me entreat you not to utter any sentiments, either in the pulpit or in conversation, that you do not believe to be strictly true;" on which she said, turning to me, "Look, this is the important point, what your mother says here," and I immediately put my own letter into the fire. "What are you doing?" she quickly said; and when I answered, "You are right – my mother's letter is to the point, and that only need go," she nodded assent, and, keeping it, sent it enclosed with a few lines from herself.

I knew what I had done and so did she: the giving up of the ministry to a young man without other resources was no light matter; and as I rose to go she said, "These are the tragedies for which the world cares so little, but which are so much to me."

More than twenty years elapsed before I had again the privilege of seeing George Eliot, and that on one occasion only, after her final settlement in London. It touched me deeply to find how much she had retained of her kind interest in all that concerned me and mine, and I remarked on this to Mr. Lewes, who came to the door with my daughter and myself at parting. "Wonderful sympathy," I said. "Is it not?" said he; and when I added, inquiringly, "The power lies there?" "Unquestionably it does," was his answer; "she forgets nothing that has ever come within the curl of her eyelash; above all, she forgets no one who has ever spoken to her one kind word."

END OF VOL. I

1

The farm is also known as the South Farm, Arbury.

2

"Felix Holt" – Introduction.

3

See vol. ii. p. 96.

4

A Mr. Heming was the Radical candidate.

5

"Mill on the Floss," chap. iii. book iv.

6

"Daniel Deronda."

7

See vol. iii.

8

"Felix Holt," chap. xxxviii. p. 399.

9

Given to her as a school prize when she was fourteen.

10

"Mill on the Floss," chap. v. book vi.

11

Of ecclesiastical history.

12

The Squire of Coton.

13

When she would be thirteen years old.

14

Written probably in view of her brother's marriage.

15

Visit to Miss Rawlins, her brother's fiancée.

16

By a curious coincidence, when she became Mrs. Cross, this actually was her motto.

17

Brother's marriage.

18

Miss Mary Hennell was the author of "An Outline of the Various Social Systems founded on the Principle of Co-operation," published in 1841.

19

This was an ivory image she had of the Crucified Christ over the desk in her study at Foleshill, where she did all her work at that time – a little room on the first floor, with a charming view over the country.

20

Organs of Combativeness.

21

Afterwards acknowledged by the author, Robert Landor (brother of Walter Savage Landor), who also wrote the "Fountain of Arethusa," etc.

22

John Foster, Baptist minister, born 1770, died 1843.

23

An Ahnung– a presentiment – of her own future.

24

On Emerson.

25

Francis Newman.

26

It may be noted as a curious verification of this presentiment that "Scenes of Clerical Life" were published in 1856 – just seven years later.

27

Mrs. Hennell.

28

Mr. and Mrs. C. Hennell.

29

Mr. Charles Lewes tells me that when he went to stay with the d'Alberts at Geneva, many years afterwards, they mentioned how much they had been struck by her extraordinary discernment of the character of these two boys.

30

"Philosophy of Necessity," by Charles Bray.

31

Frederick Foxton, author of "Popular Christianity: its Transition State and Probable Development."

32

"Man's Nature and Development," by Martineau and Atkinson.

33

This was a merely formal and casual introduction. That George Eliot was ever brought into close relations with Mr. Lewes was due to Mr. Herbert Spencer having taken him to call on her in the Strand later in this year.

34

Appeared in January, 1852, number of the Westminster Review, No. 1 of the New Series.

35

Review of Carlyle's "Life of Sterling" in Westminster, Jan. 1852.

36

Published in the April, 1852, number of the Westminster.

37

Now Madame Belloc, who remained to the end one of George Eliot's closest friends.

38

Mrs. Peter Taylor remained a lifelong and a valued friend of George Eliot's, and many interesting letters in this volume are addressed to her. I am glad also to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to her for procuring for me two other sets of correspondence – the letters addressed to Mrs. Beecher Stowe and to Mrs. William Smith.

39

Afterwards Madame Bodichon – one of the three or four most intimate friends of George Eliot, whose name will very often appear in subsequent pages.

40

Funeral oration on the Duke of Wellington.

41

Correcting Leader proofs for Mr. Lewes.

42

Advertised in 1853-54 as to appear by "Marian Evans" in "Chapman's Quarterly Series," but never published.

43

Lord Acton tells me he first heard this bon-mot, in 1855, related of Immanuel Bekker, the philologist.

44

Translated and adapted from the French, "La joie fait peur," by Mr. Lewes, under the name of Slingsby Lawrence.

45

A wretched forehead.

46

First line of Schiller's "Song of the Bell."

47

"Gentlemen, do you know the story of the man who railed at the sun because it would not light his cigar?"

48

Goose-neck.

49

G. writes that this sonnet is Barnwell's. – [Note written later.]

50

"Land und Volk."

51

Mr. Edward Smyth Pigott, who remained to the end of their lives a very close and much valued friend of Mr. Lewes and George Eliot.

52

By Thoreau.

53

About the article on Riehl's book, "The Natural History of German Life."

54

"Baillie Prize Essay on Christianity and Infidelity: an Exposition of the Arguments on both Sides." By Miss Sara Hennell.

55

"Mill on the Floss," chap. iii. book iv. Bob Jakin.

56

Mr. W. M. W. Call, author of "Reverberations and other Poems," who married Mr. Charles Hennell's widow – formerly Miss Brabant. As will be seen from the subsequent correspondence, Mr. and Mrs. Call remained among the Lewes's warm friends to the end, and Mr. Call is the author of an interesting paper on George Eliot in the Westminster Review of July, 1881.

57

The Brays' new house at Coventry.